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Turkey's Three Gorges

Environmentalists Accuse Ankara of Early Start on Mega Dam

By Daryl Lindsey

Turkey's Ilisu dam project in ancient Mesopotamia was already controversial due to the cultural sites it would flood. Now, though, environmentalists say construction has gone ahead in violation of conditions set by project-backers Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The agreement was clear: Turkey had to fulfill a list of strict environmental conditions laid out by Germany, Austria and Switzerland by next week's deadline. Otherwise, the trio of countries might cut funding for the controversial Ilisu dam project in eastern Turkey.

Now, though, environmental groups are complaining that the project has gone ahead even before meeting the criteria. And they say they have pictures to prove it.

"The information we are receiving from the area reveals that construction work has already started on the bank of the Tigris River," Erkut Erturk, the "Stop the Ilisu Dam" project coordinator at the Turkish organization Doga Dernegi said.

The photographs obtained by the group (see image) on Tuesday show that "bulldozers and shovels have begun the destruction of 10,000 years of world heritage to make way for the Ilisu dam," he says. The construction work would be in violation of the terms imposed by Germany, Austria and Switzerland as a condition of their funding.

Environmentalists have long decried the project as a miniature Turkish version of China's Three Gorges dam. In addition to environmental concerns, they have also highlighted the displacement and cultural destruction it is expected to cause.

Conflicting Reports

According to the Turkish daily Hurriyet, an official with the Turkish State Waterworks Authority claims that a concrete wall in the riverbed is a temporary bridge being used by construction vehicles to cross to the other side of the river in order to "speed up construction of facilities around the dam, such as residences and roads," that will be removed when the actual construction starts. But the paper also quotes a construction engineering expert who says the structure looks like part of a dam, and not a bridge.

Information, however, has been contradictory. A spokesperson for Austria's Österreichische Kontrollbank, which is participating in the project, said his office had been informed by officials that the construction was a temporary bridge that had been built to help local citizens and that it was not part of the planned dam construction. "Nothing has changed in the position of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in regards to the project," Peter Gumpinger told the Austrian daily Die Presse.

But Ulrich Eichelmann of ECA Watch, an international watchdog of export credit agencies, described Kontrollbank's position as "ridiculous." Although the structure in the Tigris River was temporary in nature, he said it was clearly related to dam construction.

An "Affront"

Earlier this week Claudia Roth, the co-chair of Germany's Green Party and a longtime critic of the massive infrastructure project, called the development an "affront" and urged her government to immediately abandon its support for the controversial €1.2 billion project. The German government is planning to provide €100 million in export guarantees for the dam project. However, Berlin has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from providing credit for the dam if Ankara didn't meet the cultural and environmental conditions. Funding commitments from Austria and Switzerland are even higher.

The European countries are seeking safeguards for the cultural and environmental treasures in the area, a part of ancient Mesopotamia that is home to the city of Hasankeyf, whose ancient structures many groups believe should be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. There are also concerns about the displacement of as many as 15,000 in the impoverished Kurdish region.

The Turkish government has promoted the project as one aimed at helping the region's ethnic Kurdish population, but the Environmental Defense Fund has warned that the majority of those displaced by the dam would be "ethnic Kurds who have long been abused by Turkish authorities."

Turkey wants to build the dam in order to provide water supplies and electricity to the country's southeast. It's part of the South East Anatolia Project (GAP), which includes plans to build 22 major dams, 19 hydroelectric plants and dozens of irrigation systems in the region.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Tuesday that the three countries are continuing to negotiate behind the scenes in the hope of saving the deal, despite repeated violations of their stipulations by Ankara.

Ongoing talks, though, have irritated the dam's critics. Doga Dernegi officials said the European countries would be "accomplices in the elimination of world heritage" if they continued to provide credit backing for the massive project. And the European organization WEED said any move to delay the deadline for Turkey would be a "declaration of bankruptcy on the part of the Europeans."