Archived press release

Balfour beatty told: drop ilisu dam

14 March 2001

When: 11.10am, Wednesday 14 March.
Where: Outside Balfour Beatty offices: 130 Wilton Rd, near Victoria, London SW1

Campaigners will challenge construction giant Balfour Beatty on Wednesday over its role in the highly destructive Ilisu Dam in Turkey. The challenge coincides with an International Day of Action on Dams, drawing attention to the threat faced by people and the environment by projects around the world.[1]

Directors of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, including Mark Thomas and Kerim Yildiz of the Kurdish Human Rights Project, will present the company with a detailed report on the impacts of the project. The report was compiled following a fact-finding mission to the area.

Campaigners are urging Balfour Beatty not to build the Ilisu dam which will:

• affect up to 78,000 people, the majority of them Kurdish;

• flood an area the size of Manchester, submerging some 183 villages and hamlets and the town of Hasankeyf, an internationally important archaeological site dating back 10,000 years;

• threaten to cause conflict over water resources between Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

The Report, 'If the River Were a Pen.', follows a fact-finding mission to the Ilisu area by an international team from the UK, Germany, US and Italy [2] _ all governments which are considering support for the dam.

Nicholas Hildyard, UK member of the Fact Finding Mission says:
“The Ilisu Dam cannot meet international standards, particularly as regards the resettlement of affected people. Faced with our Report's findings, how can Balfour Beatty justify its continued involvement in this disastrous project?”

Friends of the Earth Policy Director Tony Juniper added:
"Whitehall sources tell us that Tony Blair wants to kick this issue into the long grass until after the General Election. But this is a key test of Labour's environmental and ethical credibility. He must say no to Balfour Beatty's export credit without further delay."

The Report concludes:

1. The conditions set by governments require only paper commitments which are meaningless in the context of the reality on the ground in Turkey - one of human rights abuses, repression and intimidation [3].

2. The social, political and economic rights of the Kurdish people in the region remain repressed, so there can be no confidence that the Turkish authorities will abide by the conditions. While the Report's authors welcome the fact that conditions have been set, they argue that they do not go nearly far enough. Moreover, the conditions are now outdated, having been superseded by the new guidelines on dam construction recommended by the World Commission on Dams [4].

3. Ilisu, the authors claim, violates each and every one of the WCD's new guidelines; In particular, conditions in the region make it impossible for resettlement to be carried out in a fair and just manner; while consultation with affected people has been inadequate, biased and constrained by intimidation. Doubts also exist as to the true number of people potentially affected by the Ilisu _ which although estimated at 78,000 [5] could yet climb higher.

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

[1] International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water & Life March 14, 2001, co-ordinated by the International Rivers Network. See: { www.irn.org/dayofaction }. In 2000, 70 actions took place internationally in 26 countries.

[2] The International Fact Finding Mission of Non-Governmental Organisations _ The Kurdish Human Rights Project (UK), The Corner House (UK), An Eye on SACE (Italy), World Economy Ecology Development(Germany) and Pacific Environment Research Centre (US) _ visited the Ilisu area from October 9-16 2000.The Mission talked to a wide variety of people including villagers who stand to be affected by the dam, local officials, lawyers, engineers, human rights workers, archaeologists and professional associations.

[3] The four conditions, proposed by the export credit agencies of the UK, US, Germany, Italy and other countries, require measures to be taken on resettlement, archaeological salvage, water quality and consultation over downstream flows between Turkey and her neighbours.

[4] The World Commission on Dams was set up by the World Bank and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 1997 “to review the performance of large dams and make recommendations for future planning of water and energy projects”. Its independence - reflected in the composition of the Commission - is widely acknowledged; and its report, based on two and a half years of in-depth research and consultation, constitutes the most comprehensive, global review of the economic, social and environmental impacts of dams to have been undertaken. The WCD's guidelines were published in November 2000.

[5] The Swiss Export Credit Agency hired Dr. Ayse Kudat, a senior sociologist at the World Bank, to help ensure that the resettlement plan and compensation proposals met international standards. A leaked copy of Dr. Kudat's review of the Turkish Government's Draft Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) was obtained by the Ilisu Dam Campaign and other NGOs internationally in August 2000. The review raised major concerns over the resettlement planning process to date.

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