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Kurds
build homes and make tools with remnants of weapons
Saddam once used against them.
Bakir Mustafa, 41, was leaning against one of the
pillars supporting his balcony, looking at the sun
rising over the mountains in the Penjwen area of
northeastern Iraq.
The only thing disturbing the serene setting was the
fact that the pillars were made out of shrapnel from
exploded mortar shells.
"When we returned to our area after the 1991
uprising, construction materials were very
expensive," Mustafa said. "So to rebuild our houses,
we resorted to military equipment and items left
from the Iraq-Iran war."
Many Iraqis find pieces of artillery, rockets and
other equipment - relics of years of conflict that
litter the countryside - useful in their peacetime,
civilian lives.
It's ironic that many in the northern Kurdish region
are using military detritus for civilian purposes as
they are the remnants of arms used to attack Kurds
during the Saddam Hussein regime.
For years, Ghareeb Aziz, a 67-year-old farmer, has
used a burnt artillery gun barrel to water his small
field. "I had no other choice," said Aziz, who is
from Sharbazher, located just north of Sulaimaniyah.
Shilan Abdu-Qadir, 28, uses artillery shell
cartridges as vases, which now hold yellow and red
flowers. "Because they are long and yellow, they are
fit to serve as vases," she said.
Hussein Wali, 42, makes a living driving a Russian
military truck used by the former Iraqi Republican
Guard. Wali found the vehicle at the Salam military
camp in Sulaimaniyah. In need of repair, he fixed it
and now uses it to transport food.
"I don't how many Kurds have been Anfalised with
this truck," said Wali, referring to the 1988
campaign in which 182,000 Kurds disappeared and
4,000 villages were destroyed by the former regime.
"But I know that with this truck, I can make a
living for my family."
Haji Masifi, general manager of Mine Affairs in the
Sulaimaniyah administration, has warned that using
leftover shells and rockets for civilian use was
unsafe for the population.
"We don't think it is a good thing at all for
civilians to handle bits of explosives and weapons
for whatever purposes, because this may ultimately
result in their death," said Masifi.
But with basic raw materials expensive, such
warnings appear to having little impact.
While much of the military litter is utilised for
practical purposes, there are some who have found
more creative uses for it.
Artist Zeerak Meera, 24, came up with an original
idea for a sculpture when he turned up at a deserted
Iraqi army base near Kirkuk following the
American-led invasion of the country.
He came across several thousand military boots. But
instead of selling them, he turned them into a
seven-metre sculpture of a human being, meant to
represent the Iraqi citizen, and placed it where a
bronze statue of Saddam used to stand.
"I did that to prove that military boots are more
valuable than the dictators who use their power to
oppress and dishonour human beings," he said.
Frman Abdul-Rahman is an IWPR trainee in
Sulaimaniyah.
www.iwpr.net
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