Hasankeyf/ The Useless Ilisu Dam. /Siemens Corp.

In the summer of 2005 I visited Hasankeyf and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the place. A city with a ten thousand year old history, which has withstood earthquakes and invasions for millenia. The question today is, will Hasankeyf survive the stupidity, greed, and racism-- not just of the Turkish Government, but of the Western Corporations involved in building the Ilisu Dam. This dam will flood the city of Hasankeyf, wipe out countless archaeological treasures, displace around 78 thousand Kurdish people (with next to nothing in compensation), as well as enable Turkey to control and/or cut off the water supply to Iraq. The dam will further stress the urban centers nearby-- Diyarbakir and Batman. Diyarbakir has seen it's population swell with refugees of the "forced migration" making up about 60% of it's population. A population that has swollen from around 150,00 in the late 80's to something approaching two million today. In an interview with one of the mayors of the local municipality in January, I was told that the city absolutely could not sustain the influx of any more refugees. Life is at a breaking point. None of the local governments want this dam built.

This is the second time the city has been threatened. An earlier attempt to build this dam by the British corporation Balfour Beatty was stopped by a public campaign, organized in part by the Kurdish Human Rights Project. It's unbelievable the project can be revived again. Nothing about the project has changed that would make it less destructive, more economically useful, less devastating to a culture, to history, and to thousands of innocent villagers.

The following account is taken from the Blog site RASTI. I am copying at length because it's such a clear account of the situation:

"Erdogan, the intrepid errand boy of the pashas, broke ground today on the highly discredited Ilisu Dam project in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

The original consortium for Ilisu broke down in 2000 and 2001, due to many problems associated with the project. Turkey never commissioned an environmental impact study, nor did it assess potential climate changes as a result of going ahead with the project. Turkey's atrocious human rights record and its war against the Kurdish people was cited as problematic, as well as the example of resettlement problems preceding the construction of the Ataturk Dam. There were problems with regard to international law and the water rights of Syria and Iraq--a fact that caused the World Bank to refuse to get involved with any part of the GAP as far back as 1984. The CIA even felt that this scheme was a major security risk.

Finally, in 2001, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, confirmed all these problems in their own study of the situation. That study noted that GAP did nothing for the poorer, rural regions and it recommended that the affected populations needed to be brought into the planning process as well as be informed of all impacts of the project. The study also pointed out that there were other more effective and cost efficient means of modernizing the energy system. Moreover, the Swiss acknowledged that there was a lot of international financial support for the project, due to Turkey's dismal economic situation. Naturally, these international companies stood to gain from GAP.

Austria was involved with GAP from the beginning and seems to have stayed with it (along with the French company, Alstom Power), perhaps even acquiring German and Swiss shares in the project, especially with regard to a renewed effort to go ahead with the Ilisu Dam. The Austrian company, Andritz AG, has had very close working ties to Siemens and Swiss Sulzer-Hydro. That last, Sulzer-Hydro, belongs to Austrian VA Tech and, as of Spring, 2006, VA Tech Hydro became the property of Andritz AG.

While public pressure over the scandal of the Ilisu project caused Swiss, German and other countries to drop out due to public discussion over the findings of a Swiss Export Credit Agency (ECA) report, Austria's Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG kept a lid on the information to protect its "investment." Andritz AG is still attempting to silence any public discussion of the project, as is evident by the fact that the company refused to allow an Amnesty International representative to be present at its press conference on the dam earlier this week.





The face of the new Hitler:
Andritz AG's Wolfgang Leitner.



What could Andritz AG be trying to hide? Maybe similar information as that found by the Zurich study? Or the Swiss ECA study? Or that found in February 2005 by a fact-finding mission conducted by the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Kurdish Human Rights Project?

The NUI and KHRP present a thorough case for the historical and cultural arguments against the construction of the Ilisu Dam, but even more compelling is their case on the basis of human rights, because we are talking about the impact of this project on the lives of some 78,000 individuals, as well as their collective identity. There is no plan in place for adequate compensation. Indeed, given the fact that many of those 78,000 are not landholders, they will receive no compensation. In addition, their sources of survival, such as subsistence farming and fishing will be completely destroyed. They will be forced into the region's cities, all of which have unemployment rates well above 50%, the effects of which are already documented in the delegation's document as regards previous displacements.

Going ahead with the construction of the dam will increase human rights abuses and impunity of state security forces, something that is already well underway with the state's renewal of the dirty war. Widespread lack of food, clean water, sanitation, housing, health care, education, and lack of a welfare system and unemployment assistance will continue to increase. The situation of Kurdish women and children, accepted targets of the security forces, will become even more dire."

The supposed purpose of the Ilisu dam is to provide hydro electricity, but it will only be viable for fifty years. After that, it will be useless. In addition, much of the power capacity of the dam is lost as the electricity is sent to the west. It's an incredibly inefficient project. The mayor of Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir has said that it would be far more economically viable to promote tourism in the region. (And I agree, both Diyarbakir and Hasankeyf are incredible places, with great tourist potential.) In an interview with Osman Baydemir, he related how the Turkish government has said there will be "Even more tourism with this dam... Tourists will want to take a boat and then scuba dive to view the archaeological ruins." In response to this, he said " Obviously, they are laughing at us. This is ridiculous." The Turkish government also has launched a pr campaign claiming they will "move" the site. This would be akin to moving the Grand Canyon. Hasankeyf is not something that can go into a museum. It's a living cultural entity, a geographical and archaeological wonder. I can't believe there is not more outcry about what may happen there. At the end of March, the German government approved credit export guarantees which will allow the construction of the dam to proceed. From ECA Watch:

Ilisu dam: Non-governmental organizations criticize German approval of export credit guarantee for Turkish Ilisu dam

Todays decision by the German Government to finally grant an export credit guarantee for the Ilisu dam in southeast Turkey has met with substantial criticism from non-governmental organizations.

"The German Government sacrifices people, culture and the environment in order to enable companies to make profits, judges Heike Drillisch of the environmental and development organization WEED. "The pro-Ilisu decision is a shame and dishonour for Germany. Participation of the affected population and of the elected representatives of the surrounding municipalities was negligible. According to surveys approximately 80% of the population oppose the project. "With its decision, the Federal Government obviously has yielded to pressures which the Turkish government exerted, instead of respecting international standards, says Drillisch.

"The approval of the export credit guarantee for the Ilisu dam is more than a disappointment for us, the affected people. By its double-tongued behaviour the German government loses all credibility, explains Ercan Ayboga, from the local Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive. The German Government is taking part in a great crime against the culture and the environment and is contributing to human rights violations against tens of thousands of people. The Ilisu dam is such a destructive project that it cannot be improved with any conditions. Therefore it must be stopped, said Ayboga.

Regine Richter of the environmental and human rights organisation urgewald comments: "With this decision the German Government knowingly accepts irreversible damage of biodiversity and the destruction of habitat for many birds. So far no complete environmental impact assessment for the project has been done. Such a procedure would be unconceivable with any European project.

The project may not even be compatible with Turkish laws as legal proceedings are still pending in Turkey. Thus the German Government is contradicting its own criteria for the assignment of export credit guarantees.

Only last Friday the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive opened a park of hope and solidarity in the affected region with participation by international environmental and human rights activists, as well as European and German Parliamentarians.

A recent message that the Turkish government plans to deploy 5.000 soldiers in the predominantly Kurdish project area in order to ensure security highlights how disputed the project is in the region. "Our resistance will continue in any case. The German government will be confronted constantly with this irresponsible decision", the non governmental organizations declared. They are examining legal steps to be taken against this decision by the German Government.

Further information:
Heike Drillisch (WEED), +49 177 345 26 11
Regine Richter (urgewald), +49 170 2930 725

In January I stood on top of the castle looking down at the Tigris, watching shepherds drive their sheep across the valley as they've done for hundreds of years. Far away in the fields below, kids were playing. Though cold, it was like a piece of heaven. There was a young man who led me up the path to the top of the Castle who wanted to talk about what's been happening lately.When I asked him about a family I'd met who live in a nearby cave, he said they had been forced out of their home a few months earlier, by the government. When I asked him if he'd ever been to any of the other cities, Diyarbakir, Batman... Istanbul? He smiled and shook his head no. "I never want to leave this place. This is the only place I want to be." he said.