Desperation forces migrants to make life-and-death decisions. Many decide the only way out of a bad situation in their homeland is to put their lives in the hands of a total stranger and hope for the best. Many call on Besinor, an unabashed people smuggler who claims to have illegally moved at least 1,000 men, women and children out of Iraq. Besinor, whose name he chose for this report means “borderless” in Kurdish, works in an area of moral ambiguity. To some, he is a savior and the guide to a hopeful future. To others, he is a criminal who cons impoverished people and sends them on a path to sadness, uncertainly, even death. But to Besinor, it’s just a job. For $1,000 a head, he promises unhappy people a new life. Besinor sells hope, one might say, and these days in oppressive Iran and terror-stricken Iraq, business is good. “People are hopeless about the future and want to leave: No employment, no education, no hope,” he said on a recent day in the remote Iraqi Kurdistan village of Ranya, inside a crumbling shelter that serves as his office. “Thousands of others would do the same job if I didn’t. People will still need to get out.” That doesn’t mean it’s easy: the pistol in his pin-striped dress pants points to a life of subterfuge, bribery, forged documents and dicey escapes. At 40, Besinor’s dark hair is beginning to gray. He said he sleeps with his gun because he might be murdered for helping others escape. It wasn’t always this way. In the 1980s, he smuggled goods to and from Iran to make money for his family. When Tehran cracked down and sealed the borders in 1999, he had to rethink his career. “I liked human smuggling because when I started nobody could do it,” he said. “Now everybody claims to be a people smuggler.” AVENUE OF HOPE Many of Besinor’s clients, mostly Iranian dissidents, are more than willing to accept the risks that come with his services. Hiwa, now 27, fled from Iran when he was 18, fearing that his family was targeted by the government for its role in the Kurdish resistance. He crossed the border into the Kurdistan region and tried for four years to reach the West by legal means. “There was lots of humiliation involved in the residency process. As a refugee, I had no rights at all. I couldn’t even buy a SIM card,” said Hiwa, whose name has been changed at his request. “I found myself very desperate and hopeless, so I decided to be a refugee somewhere else, somewhere where my rights are respected.” He called Besinor. “I did a little research about which smuggler was better than others. Everybody around me assured me that he could get me to the place I want. There were a bunch of Iranian activists who got to European countries successfully through him,” he said. Hiwa borrowed $1,500 from his cousin and set out at 4 am after saying goodbye to his sobbing sisters and parents. “They were scared because they knew I was risking everything,” Hiwa said. CHANGE OF APPEARANCE This is where Hiwa’s experience parallels the others who Besinor and his network of associates have helped illegally cross from Iraqi Kurdistan into Turkey and beyond. Besinor was waiting at the bus terminal in Ranya at 7 am, by Hiwa’s account. The Iranian refugee had only a towel and a toothbrush, and no form of identification. After a brief explanation of how the following hours would unfold, Besinor put Hiwa in a car and sent him toward the Turkish border. They breezed by all the Kurdish checkpoints before stopping in a border village to deliver Hiwa to the next station. “Every driver called Besinor to tell him I made it to the next station,” Hiwa said. The new driver shaved Hiwa’s head and removed his glasses before setting out for Turkey. As they pulled up to the border, they were met with scores of Turkish troops sweeping every car, Hiwa recalled. The beefed up security was in response to the PKK’s killing of several police officers the day before. With shaky hands, Hiwa sat silently as border patrol carefully inspected the car. They let them pass without saying a word. Besinor explained that bribery has become a consistent way to pass through checkpoints and evade arrest. After passing into Turkey, Hiwa and the smuggling partner drove north a couple hours to Yuksekova, a Turkish town near the Iranian border. Once there, another of Besinor’s associates took pictures of Hiwa and made the fake Turkish ID card. After three days, Hiwa and the associate boarded a public transit bus full of Turks. They passed through the first checkpoint with no problem. At the second checkpoint, police entered the bus and demanded IDs from everyone on board. “I thought I was in trouble,” Hiwa said. “I handed them my ID while the guy who made it was asleep and snoring next to me.” The police ran each ID through a computer, Hiwa said. They returned the cards to everyone and let the bus pass. The same thing happened at the next checkpoint. They finally reached the city of Van, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Yuksekova, where Besinor’s guide escorted Hiwa to the front of the UN refugee building. “I entered, then I called my father to deliver the money to Besinor,” said Hiwa. Once clients obtain documents form the UNHCR, they hire other smugglers to get them out of the country, Besinor explained. The way out of Turkey depends on the client and the smuggler. Some take a plane, while many others travel on boat. The route via boat is from Turkey to Izmir, then to Greece, then to the country of their choice in the European Union. ACTIVIST OR CRIMINAL? Back in Ranya, Besinor squeezes in no more than 30 seconds of conversation at a time before his phone goes off. This call is from the father of one of his clients who has been imprisoned in Greece for more than two weeks. Not all smuggling trips are as successful as Hiwa’s. In this case, a female client was caught in Greece for illegal immigration after Besinor helped her leave the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Besinor said it is rare for clients to be imprisoned, but when it happens he helps to release them. He hires a lawyer for about $1,000 and stays in contact with the family until the client’s release. Arrests happen mostly to refugees traveling by foot in Greece, he said. The conditions of sea travel vary. Many unethical smugglers will load clients on unsafe boats. As long as they have money in hand, Besinor explained, they’re unbothered by the fate of their former clients. “It’s unethical and inhumane. I would never do such a thing. Conscience guides me,” he said, his phone buzzing with potential clients. “I want to live comfortably and guilt free.” Of the money he charges for smuggling, Besinor said, he pockets about $200 and refuses to accept the job if he feels his client’s safety could be threatened. Even so, the gray moral area in which Besinor operates is not lost on human rights experts. Joel Millman, of the International Organization for Migration, said that in general human smuggling is a bad practice, but smugglers are necessary tools for people who cannot afford to immigrate legally. “A smuggler could be two different people,” Millman said. “He could seem like [a refugee’s] best friend and savior, but we also know plenty of smugglers who use techniques like kidnapping, extortion and torture to make money.” But for Hiwa, and other successfully smuggled migrants, Besinor is no criminal. “I’m still grateful toward Besinor who helped me to cross the border illegally,” said Hiwa. “There are, of course, horrible cases with human smuggling that are unjustifiable and wrong in any time and place but helping people who are in trouble is not wrong.” Hiwa, who is now studying human rights and philosophy in Canada, has a hard-earned perspective on Besinor and other people smugglers. “With or without smugglers, people still have every right to seek safety, freedom and a prosperous life,” he said. One has the right to live without fear, and whoever helps to obtain such a right is a human rights activist, whether he is a smuggler or an immigration officer.” HOPELESSNESS AT HOME As for Besinor, he said he hates living in the Kurdistan region and dreams of going to the United States. His wife and three children talk more and more about fleeing the country, something he swore he’d do years ago. “Human smuggling, in general, is not a good thing,” he said, as he reached back for his pistol and reiterated why he keeps it on him at all times. He said he fears assassination ordered by Iran. He said the country’s officials have tried to arrest him multiple times for helping political activists and opposition figures, such as Hiwa and his family. Local authorities know Besinor is smuggling Iranian political activists, he said, but Iraqi security forces leave him alone because he does his job ethically. An added benefit and motivator in his work as a human smuggler, Besinor said, is being able to “agitate the Iranian regime.” His future seems uncertain, even if his business has never been better. Maybe one day he and his family will take the same route he has opened for so many others. After all, once he is outside of Iraq, lodging shouldn’t be much of a problem. “I’ll stay at the homes of people I’ve helped escape,” he said with a smile.
