Ilisu Dam protest and Eisteddfod

The Ilisu Dam Campaign Cymru is staging its first protest march at the Eisteddfod on Wednesday the 9th August at 2:30pm with speakers outside the Peace Stand.

The Dam, due to be built in the Kurdish region of Turkey by a consortium including British builder Balfour Beatty, has been slammed as an environmental disaster, a human rights scandal and a threat to peace. It is set to displace 25,000 mainly Kurdish people without proper compensation, drown the world historic site of Hasankeyf, and with other dams in the region will control water flow on the Tigris river into Syria and Iraq. Campaigners are demanding that the British Government refuse to back Balfour Beatty with a $200 million export credit. Balfour Beatty built the unpopular Cardiff Bay Barrage and is currently facing corruption charges for previous involvement in a dam in Lesotho.

The marchers, accompanied by a Kurdish dance group, will then proceed to the Labour tent and build a symbolic Dam of their own.

The rally will begin at 2:30pm with speakers outside the Peace Stand. The speakers are:
Eurig Wyn, Plaid Cymru MEP
Councillor Dafydd Iwan
Ann Clwyd MP
Morgan Francis, Chairman of Ilisu Dam Campaign Cymru

The group will then proceed towards the Labour tent, at about 2:50pm, with a Kurdish dance group, where they will build a symbolic dam. Dam builders will be dressed in boiler suits and hard hats.

Commenting, Morgan Francis, Chair of the Ilisu Dam Campaign Cymru, said:

" This group was launched in Wales in support of the 25,000 Kurdish people who will be displaced by the dam. These people have no democratic rights and are denied their own language and cultural identity. Where better, than our annual celebration of Welsh culture and language, to show solidarity with an oppressed people overseas? "

Eurig Wyn, Plaid Cymru MEP commented:

" There are striking parallels from when Tryweryn was built in the 1960s to what's happening now. The people of Wales, having gone through a similar ordeal, must do their best to assist these oppressed people. The British government must withdraw its support for the Ilisu Dam project. "

The group consists of representatives from Friends of the Earth Cymru, Kurdish Aid Wales, Wales Green Party, People and Planet and Cynefin y Werin/Common Ground. The group considers the campaign to have significant resonance in Wales, as the 25,000 Kurdish people who will be displaced by the dam are denied their language, cultural identity and democratic rights. The people of Wales are fortunate enough to have their own democratically elected Assembly, operating in English and Welsh, and working for the best interests of the people of Wales.