Ilısu Dam Campaign

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The Ilısu Dam Campaign is a UK based campaign working to stop the construction of the Ilısu Dam on the river Tigris in south east Turkey. The construction plans for the dam would lead to the flooding of about 300 square kilometers and would displace between 25,000 and 78,000 people, mainly Kurds, in the Hasankeyf district of the Batman province.

1 Initial plans for the dam
2 Current plans
3 Impact on Displaced Cultures
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Initial plans for the dam

The main purpose of the dam is the production of hydroelectric power, but it's also supposed to provide better irrigation for local agriculture. Those who oppose the dam claim that human rights and environmental issues have been disregarded in the planning. The dam would also lead to the drowning of hundreds of archeological sites, including the ancient town of Hasankeyf.

Other arguments against the dam includes the possible escalation of conflict between Kurdish groups and the Turkish government in the area, as well as possible tension between Turkey and other countries, Iraq and Syria, over control of the water in Tigris and the flow of water into these countries.

In 2002, the campaign won an important victory when it forced UK based company Balfour Beatty and other European companies, like Swedish based Skanska, to withdraw from the project. The companies involved in the project had applied for Export Credit Guarantees from their home governments, which meant that taxpayers money would be used to finance the project.

[edit] Current plans

The plans for the dam were not scrapped however, and in 2005 the project resurfaced. This time one of the main contractors of the dam is Austrian based VA TECH, a subsidiary of Siemens AG. According to the Turkish government, new resettlement plans are supposedly planned and a large fund is supposed to be set up to rescue some parts of the town of Hasankeyf by moving them elsewhere.

According to the opponents of the dam, these new plans do not adequately address the original concerns and as of August 2005 the campaign is still active.

[edit] Impact on Displaced Cultures

The Ilısu Dam project has been criticized for the fact that the damming of the Tigris River will flood a significant portion of the historical Armenian and Kurdish homelands, effectively erasing the cultural and archaeological history of those displaced peoples. Further controversy results from the fact that the events of the Armenian Genocide, recognized by a wide array of international scholars but officially denied by Turkey, were geographically concentrated in the region that is to be flooded by the Turkish dam project. Critics point out that the dam could effectively erase the evidence of ancient Kurdish and Armenian habitation in the region.