|
FightING ILISU DAM - SAVE HASANKEYF AND TIGRIS VALLEY |
|
Welcome to the Homepage of the „Initative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive“ |
|
INTRODUCTION / BACKGROUND |
|
Some papers with an introduction into the Ilisu Project:
Das Ilisu-Staudammprojekt und seine Auswirkungen — Stoppt die Vernichtung Hasankeyfs, July 2007 (german) - (also as pdf)
The Ilisu Dam Project — A flawed Plan is revived unchanged, May 2007, (english) - (also as pdf)
———————————————-
NEW paper:
Ilisu Dam: Facts, Impacts and Protests
By the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive (July 2008)
The Ilisu Dam and Hydroelectric Project is a key part of a large scale regional development project, the South-eastern Anatolia Project (GAP), in the Kurdish southeast of Turkey. As one of 19 dams Ilisu Dam’s intended location is on the Tigris River. It includes a hydroelectric power plant with a capacity of 1200 MW, and will be built in conjunction with another dam, at Cizre, used for irrigation purposes. Around 1997 the Turkish government started the first attempt to implement this project. But in 2002, after a campaign by affected people and many civil organizations in Europe the foreign companies and financers dropped out of the project due to its potentially disastrous consequences on population, ecology, culture and international relations, and so the project stopped. Regardless in 2004 the Turkish government established the new Ilisu consortium of Turkish, Austrian (VA Tech/Andritz, consortium leader), German and Swiss companies. Although the protest of the affected people and supporting NGOs in Turkey and Europe was large, the Turkish government and the companies continued to go on with the project and in March 2007 German, Austrian, and Swiss government approved the crucial export credit guarantees for the Ilisu project despite the infamous project’s virtually unchanged situation. This decision is connected it with 153 conditions (called TOR) to be fulfilled by Turkish government what is currently a high discussion point because Turkey does not fulfil these since that.
-------------------------------------- The Ilisu Dam: Dam Site Location: On the Tigris River, between provinces Mardin and Sirnak, 65km from border to Syria Purpose: Energy production (but the condition for the lower irrigation dam of Cizre) Hydro Powerplant: 1200 MW (3822 Gwh/year) à 4th biggest of Turkey Height of the dam structure: 138 m Length of the dam reservoir: 136 km (250 km with tributaries) Area of dam reservoir: 313 km2 à 3rd biggest of Turkey Storage capacity: 10.4 Mrd m3 (10.4 km3) à 4th biggest of Turkey Costs: Total 2 Billion (1.2 Bill. € Construction + 0.8 Bill. € Resettlement) Affected people: up to 78.000 people Affected settlements: 199 villages + 1 city
---------------------------------------
Impacts of the Ilisu Project The Ilisu Dam project is a destructive project in every dimension. The negative impacts are broad and huge and the only benefit is the energy which will provide the western industrial and urban parts of Turkey. No one of the 153 conditions, set up by the three involved European governments, will improve – if implemented – essentially this principally wrong project. The project does not even meet the minimum requirements of the World Bank: mitigating environmental problems, assessing alternatives, consultation with riparian nations, and local participation in decision-making.
Social Issues The Turkish government has developed a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) to handle the displacement of villagers. But the organizational plans for resettlement and compensation are very weak. The only really positive effect of the TORs is in this aspect. But due to the situation in the region they will have only some positive improvements. The planned Ilisu dam and reservoir will flood completely or partially totally 200 settlements which are the homelands of up to 78.000 people, almost all Kurdish. Since the middle of the 80s this region is determined by the armed conflict between the Kurdish guerrilla of PKK and the Turkish Army. As one result around 80 of the 199 villages were destroyed by the Turkish Army. The majority of the displaced people still live in the cities and they did not get any compensation (the RAP does not account for these people). After some years of peaceful situation in the region the political conflict raises again since 2006. Because of that the affected people have fear to ask for their rights within the resettlement process. In addition, officials have not consulted with local affected cities and organizations. Women, in particular, have been left out of the decision-making, although the DSI claims to be focused on women’s and children’s issues. Even if villagers are consulted, it is within the ongoing context of state oppression, torture, and other human rights violations. Under the present conditions, a fair and open discussion of the project is impossible. The second main problem of the resettlement issue is that half of the people (according to two survey done by our initiative) posses no land (or very limited). They will be the people who will suffer the most. According to the TOR these people will only get some educational courses (no plans yet exist) and a loan for a new job, but with usual interest rate. Even the small landowners, who will get some compensation, will be faced with big problems because of the resettlement. The TORs foresee that the resettlement has to be done after the principle “land for land”. But there is not enough land for the people. Maybe new villages can be built, but because we are in a old cultural region the suitable land is already in use. The result will be that the affected people will get compensation – if they have land and the landtitles – and go to the two bigger cities of Diyarbakir and Batman. But here live hundred thousands of displaced people from the conflict and the cities have no further capacities. So the displaced people will be confronted with big social, economic and psychological problems. The promise of ten thousand jobs, which has been said also by the prime minister, is an obvious lye because during the 7 years of construction on average 2300 people will have work, then only around 200. At the same time some thousand jobs will be destroyed. In general the many dams, constructed till today in the region, have not brought any positive development for the people of the region.
Ecological Issues According to the internationally renowned University of ETH Zürich and others, the Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIA-R) released by the Turkish authorities is vague, incomplete, and sometimes even contradictory. Rather the EIA-R fulfils not the framework of a real EIA-R (another violation of international standards), so it is appropriate to state that this is not an EIA-R. The reason for that is the big lack of data from the Tigris valley and its ecology. Because there are almost no researches and assessment on the flora, fauna and ecology, it is like with the culture: we do not know what we will loose if the dam is built. The Euphrates River is already completely impounded; the Tigris is comparably free-flowing. The Tigris valley is very important for the flora and fauna of the whole region, here are many canyons and some forests. The dam reservoir would threaten many plants and animals. A very big problem would be the water quality of the planned reservoir. Because of many urban areas (three big and several middle cities) and developing irrigation upstream of the reservoir an eutrophication (increase in chemical/biological nutrients and decrease of oxygen) will occur. The planned waste water treatment plants will be not enough good and widespread to prevent this. It will be very difficult to overcome a possible eutrophication. The first impact will be lost of almost all fish and other aquatic species. The contaminated water will be a big healthy danger for the population as it happened around the dam reservoirs on the Euphrates Rivers. Diseases like malaria and typhus will be seen broadly. Also a change of local climate is expected due to the higher humidity. This will threaten further terrestrial species in the valley and support the deforestation, like it was the case with dams on the Euphrates River. The sedimentation rate will be very high because of the semi-arid climate, geology and systematic deforestation in the last decades. So the economic operation will be around 50-60 years.
Cultural heritage issues The most widely decried result of the Ilisu project is the destruction of cultural heritage, in particular the ancient city of Hasankeyf. The Tigris Valley, of which a big part will be flooded by the Ilisu reservoir, is a very important part of Upper Mesopotamia where the cultural heritage is on the highest level. In the region around the Upper Tigris and Euphrates River are the first settlements of the human history. Other dam projects have already flooded some of these archaeological sites. In the Ilisu affected region are officially 289 archaeological sites although the surveys are done in almost half of it. Till today only in 14 of these sites are done excavations and more is not foreseen. The history of Hasankeyf goes at least 9000 years back. Hasankeyf, which is embedded nonrecurring in the nature, was always inhabited by people who lived until the 60s in the caves. More than 20 Eastern and Western cultures and civilizations have left their traces in Hasankeyf which is with its almost 6000 human-made caves a unique open air museum. To excavate carefully this location at least 100 years will be needed. Because for the people in the region Hasankeyf has been become the main symbol in the protests against the Ilisu project, the government and companies have developed the plan of a cultural park. They want to move 12 monuments (of total minimum 300) two km to North and claim on that basis that Hasankeyf would be rescued what is a conscious deception to what nobody believes. It is technically and environmentally impossible to move the monuments. Because after Turkish law the flooding of the first degree conservation area Hasankeyf was very complicated, the government has passed a new law which allows the flooding of cultural sites through dams. The antique city of Hasankeyf is a monument, as an important stop on the Silk Road and as a flourishing medieval city between the empires in the East and West. So the implementation of the Ilisu project will be a crime against the humanity and history of all people in the world.
In addition, the flooding caused by the dam will wipe out more recent history, including the water related culture and traditions of the people living in the area today. The Ilisu project and GAP in general decrease the cultural diversity in the region, particularly the culture of Kurdish people. The floods will cover up the religious and cultural centres of the region’s residents and the graves of their ancestors. It will also separate communities, who will not be resettled together– this serves the 80 years existing objective to assimilate locals of the region into mainstream Turkish culture.
Political Issues Turkey shares the waters of the Tigris River with Syria and Iraq. Particularly the Iraq relies on the water of Tigris River which is used for irrigation and drinking water for big cities. The storage capacity of the Ilisu reservoir and other planned dam reservoirs are more than the annual flow rate of the Tigris from Turkey to Iraq. International convention and law requires that Turkey consults with Syria and Iraq, negotiate and come to an agreement before implementing any large projects at or on the Tigris River. And exactly such an agreement is missed till today. That is why the Ilisu project (and also other GAP projects) is very problematic. Because Turkey is not bound legally to any agreement nobody can accuse it in case of holding back the majority of the flowing water. The TOR’s require only an informing of the southern neighbours. Till today there were three small information meeting which did not provided sufficiently information. It has to be stated that Turkey utilizes obviously the weakness of the Iraqi government and the situation before being member of the EU which would make it more difficult to act like today. This situation threatens to increase already present tensions between Turkey and Iraq, and could even lead to “water wars.” The idea of using water as a weapon is not new - in fact, Turkey used its dams to stop water flow into Iraq in 1990 and into Syria in 1998. Even in times of peace, allowing a state to wield this powerful tool increases tensions between neighbouring countries. By funding before the required negotiations have been made, the ECAs may be in violation of international law. World Bank standards demand that Turkey solicit opinions from riparian nations (as well as local communities) before beginning the project. Finally, the dam will increase tensions in the already conflict-ridden Kurdish region. The reservoir also serves the political purpose of disrupting the movement of the Kurdish armed group, the PKK. This has been admitted several times by Turkish officials openly to be one of the motives.
Alternatives exist… For the two official objectives of the Ilisu project exist enough alternatives. For the energy production Turkey can invest the money to renewable energy options like solar (there is enough sun) or wind (several very suitable sites). At the same time more savings must be a fundamental option. The current loss in transportation of electrical energy is more than 21%. In general Turkey needs a new energy concept. And the official argumentation that the increase of energy has to be questioned. For the regional development is has to be said that even the no option would be better than the Ilisu project. If the project budget would be invested in the culture tourism of the region, the annual income will be higher and more people will found jobs. But more urgent is the support of the 3 million displaced people in order to give them the opportunity to return back to their villages and develop the agriculture and stock raising.
The campaign against the Ilisu Project In January 2006 the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive has been founded and currently brings together a coalition of 72 organisations: Municipalities (including Hasankeyf, Diyarbakir and Batman), local NGOs working on environmental, cultural, women and human rights issues, professional associations (Lawyers, Engineers, Architects, Medical doctors) and trade unions. Indeed, there is hardly a sector in the region which does not have representation. It is possible to describe this initiative as the broadest environmental one in the Kurdish provinces. We campaign to stop this project and for alternatives to be developed with the input of all relevant stakeholders at all stages with the aim of improving the socio-economic situation of the people in the region, developing the cultural heritage and saving the environment. In that framework the affected people were informed about the project and their rights, surveys were carried out, many reports were prepared, many smaller and bigger protests were done in Hasankeyf (concerts, demonstrations etc.), the Tigris valley, Diyarbakir/Batman and Ankara (signs of affected people were given to the three embassies), delegations were sent to Europe, coalitions with the other three anti-dam movements in Turkey were established and relations to several human-rights/ecological organizations were developed on national level. Many NGO’s in Europe have formed the European Ilisu Dam Campaign which is active against the export credit guarantee. In the near future many activities and protests are planned. The campaign will be continued in every case; even if the construction starts (actually there are some preparations). Furthermore since May 2008 in West-Turkey there is also a new important campaign. The initiative “Loyalty Train to Hasankeyf” has started the “Save Hasankeyf – No Ilisu” campaign” (www.hasankeyfesadakat.org).
After the publishing of the first report of the committee of experts (whose aim is to monitor the implementation of the TOR’s) in March 2008, the discussions on international level became intensive again. Turkey has fulfilled almost no of the conditions - which was not surprising for us - and still shows no interest to do this till today although the European governments asked for information and clarification. And now the European governments are in hardship because last year they have declared that they would back out from the project in such a situation. But the unclear situation goes on.
|
