ONE on ONE One-on-One
ONE on ONE One-on-One with Bishop Basilio Yaldo During his recent visit to the United Sates from Iraq, Chaldean News Co-Publisher, Martin Manna, had the opportunity to sit down with Bishop Yaldo for an interview. This interview was translated from Sourath. Chaldean News (CN): How are the conditions for Christians in Iraq today? Bishop Yaldo (BY): Now it is a little better. Baghdad is better now than it was in the past. There are no longer any bombings. One thing we don’t have are social services. For instance, if it rains, Baghdad will flood because there are no social services to maintain the infrastructure. It has been like this for 15 years. All the money goes into pockets of politicians. We don’t have enough money to build a new hospital or bridge because of the corruption. We hope the new government will acknowledge us and our villages, especially Plain of Nineveh. We are better now; more than 1,000 families are in Teleskof. We have more than 400 families in karemlish. In Telkaif we have 18 families now; 18 families came back. They’re not big families. We have a problem there because the military there. In Mosul, we have more than 70 families that have returned. We remodeled St. Paul after it was damaged and will be reopening it. CN: Regarding the current elections, what do you think al-Sadr will bring? Are you concerned? BY: He can’t take the government without a coalition, he doesn’t have enough members. It depends on who he forms a coalition with; he doesn’t want to deal with Iran. The vision is not clear for the future of Iraq. CN: When will they form the new government? BY: They have to by the end of June. They have a month to get the government together. CN: There was five members that were part of the Christian Coalition and there has been talk, who is Ryan Chaldean? Is he supportive of the Chaldeans? Is he a member of the church? BY: Ryan Chaldean was the leader from the Shiite militia. He is proud of Chaldean; he says, ‘I am Chaldean’. In front of the world he says he is Chaldean. But we do not associate with him. He said he is Chaldean so others who identify as Chaldean would vote for him. CN: How many of the five seats are his? BY: He got 30,000 votes, so two out of the five seats are his. One seat went to someone from the Assyrian party (Zowaa). Yonadam Kanna didn’t get it, though. Emmanuel Khoshaba did. CN: Now that the elections are over, do you have any sense of who is going to be the next prime minister? BY: I wish it would be Kahled al- Obaidi, but the problem is he has to be Shiite. CN: Is there still a threat of civil war between Shiite and Sunni? BY: Yes, unless Abadi accepts the condition of settling then they will be one. CN: You said that security is getting better, but are the Christians still leaving Iraq? BY: Yes, because they have nothing. Christian families in Iraq, most of them left Iraq. There are only parents left, the children are diaspora. That is the problem. The children 36 CHALDEAN NEWS AUGUST 2018
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