http://www.the-times.co.uk
Ethnicide Intensifies: Turkey To Flood Kurdish Areas
The Times (UK)
 
April 17 2000
FEATURES
As Western governments, including Britain's, consider backing the
controversial Ilisu dam project in southeast Turkey, Feature Writer of
the Year, Ann Treneman - accompanied by up to 41 military 'escorts' -
discovers that the Kurds whose homes may soon disappear under water have
never been consulted. Photographs by Peter Nicholls
Today children play in the Tigris river, tomorrow the dam looms. Left:
Ann Treneman being shadowed by the Men in Black in the village of
Hasankeyf
'Oh yes, we're going to build the dam!'
Esra is nine, and a Kurd who lives in the beautiful and ancient town of
Hasankeyf on the Tigris river in southeast Turkey. We meet by chance at
the top of the dirt path that leads down to the riverbank. The day has
been difficult. I am here to find out what people think of the Ilisu dam
project, which will provide electricity for Turkey but will drown this
town and dozens of villages, too. In London, Tony Blair is keen on the
Ilisu and his Government has said it is "minded" to provide $220 million
in export credit for it. But, then again, the Prime Minister has never
been to this place and, therefore, does not know what it is like.
If he came, he might change his mind. Freedom of movement and freedom of
expression do not seem to exist here, at least for us. No one will let
the photographer and me work in peace, despite our shiny accreditation
cards from the Turkish Prime Minister's Office in Ankara. On this day we
have been followed since 8am by three policemen clad in black suits,
straight out of central casting. It is now 4pm and they have listened in
on almost every interview. At one point they chased me round an outdoor
caf??as though we were in a comedy sketch.
So I've come to the river to escape and Esra has come to play after a
day at school. She is a breath of fresh air, full of grace in an orange
Plucky Duck shirt and a long swingy skirt. The river flows strong and
green and smells fresh here. I tell Esra, through an interpreter, what I
am doing. She tells us what she knows of the dam. It is only an opinion
but her face turns to panic when I say that I might want to quote her.
The Men in Black follow at a distance as we walk. Esra picks daisies and
says that she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. I think about
this. Esra now knows exactly who she is and how she fits into her world.
Her family and friends are Kurds whose families have lived here for
decades, if not centuries. But the Ilisu will change everything for them
and for her. Esra is already vulnerable. She is a Kurd in Turkey, and a
girl in a man's world. The Ilisu puts her in triple jeopardy.
 
Esra, the nine-year-old Kurdish girl from the beautiful and ancient town
of Hasankeyf, which has no clue what lies in store
Back in London everyone says the story of the Ilisu is a complicated
one, and it is true that the decisions about whether it will be built
involve huge sums of money and power politics. These judgments will be
made by people in London, Washington, Berne and Ankara. They are experts
in the fields of engineering, politics, finance and construction, but
none of them has been to this riverbank.
Esra has no clue about what is in store for her. She and her friends
seem, for want of a more sophisticated word, happy. They jump and skip
and play with a stray lamb that comes down on the sand. They pick petals
off a flower and shriek with laughter. Back at the car - the Men in
Black still shadowing - I give her a pen and she is thrilled.
The Turks regard the Ilisu dam as something that already exists. They
talk of it in this way and the reservoir actually appears on Turkish
tourist maps. To them, it is clear that it is just reality that is
lagging behind. And maybe it is. Certainly, international politics bode
well for the Ilisu. Turkey is a country much in demand, with its huge
army and strategic location. Britain wants Turkey to be part of the
European Union, and this project could help to pave the way. America is
also keen to please: it has used the country as a base from which to
bomb Iraq for years. Fighter jets streak the sky here and seem as
natural as the clouds themselves.
This explains Tony Blair's enthusiasm for the Ilisu. Turkey, for its
part, is beyond bullish. "Oh yes, we are going to build the dam!"
declares an official at the giant energy department. The head of that
department is Dogan Altinbilek, the man they call Mr Dam. He is an
engineer and sees the Ilisu in terms of electricity produced. It will
help to make a brighter and lighter Turkey. Altinbilek makes it sound
utterly splendid and, in normal circumstances, very few would have known
otherwise.
A man with a Kalashnikov jumps
into the road. He looks
like a Smurf with a gun
But these are not normal times for Turkey. For the past 15 years Ankara
has fought a war against the Kurdish rebels of the PKK. It has been a
bloody and brutal affair on both sides - in total at least 30,000 have
died since 1984 - and it has been fought in the villages and hills and
valleys of the South East. The Ilisu would flood 300 square kilometres
of this land, destroy 80 hamlets and villages and displace up to 36,000
people. Many Kurds see the Ilisu project as part of the strategy to
destroy their culture and way of life. Officials in Ankara scoff at such
a thing and hint that any opposition is part of a conspiracy.
Plots aside, however, no one denies the war has been expensive and in
the 1990s Turkey found that it simply could not afford to build the
Ilisu by itself. It is this one fact that explains my presence on that
riverbank. Turkey had to find its $2 billion elsewhere, and these days
international money for a dam does not come without strings attached.
The Swiss-led consortium that stepped forward in 1998 pulled in
companies from America, Britain, Italy and Germany and they, in turn,
have all sought export credit from their governments. The leviathans
that are governments swung into action and, as they did, human rights
organisations and environmentalists raised their voices in opposition.
Clearly, nothing was going to happen quickly now.
And so, in at least five countries, hearings have been held and reports
organised. There have been many questions. Why did Turkey want to dam
the Tigris just 40 miles from the Iraqi border? Why would anyone want to
build a dam in a war zone anyway? What did the people on the ground
think? The companies in question, including Balfour Beatty in the UK,
turned to Turkey for the answers. But some questions, and particularly
the last one, could not be answered. For, it seems, the people on the
ground had never been asked what they thought. The Ilisu has been on the
drawing board since 1954 but no one in the area had ever received so
much as a postcard about it. Altinbilek says this is the way it works in
Turkey: first you sign the dam contract and then figure out what to do
with the people.
Not so for the rest of the world. International standards are clear that
people must be consulted as soon as possible. The fact that these
particular people are Kurds makes it worse. The Swiss moved first,
refusing to approve the money until an international expert and a panel
on resettlement was appointed. Other countries expressed worries, too,
and on December 21 the UK announced that it was "minded" to grant the
export credit but that a resettlement plan must be in place first.
Turkey duly hired a local company, Semor, which, from its website,
looked to be a seminar and travel agency (motto: Your Happiness is Our
Success). Meanwhile, on the ground, there were consistent reports that
nothing much was happening. The only real way to find out was to go
there. Altinbilek says Turkey has nothing to hide and that, of course, I
must go there and see for myself.
If that sounds simple, think again. The sprawling city of Diyarbakir is
600 miles from Ankara. I'm sure there are worse places in the world but
it's hard to think of one just now. It is crowded, dirty and noisy. We
are followed from the airport by a man in a blue suit and a turquoise
car. He tries to hide by ducking in a doorway. I feel as if I am in a
particularly bad Starsky & Hutch episode. Diyarbakir is a Kurdish city,
swollen to three times its normal size of half a million by refugees
from the war. We stop only long enough to find a Kurdish interpreter
(the language is banned but it is what the villagers speak) before
heading off to a town called Batman.
It is a two-hour drive. Our interpreter, Ibrahim, studies his English on
the way and, while translating a Newsweek article, asks us about the
words "spectre" and "subliminal". These turn out to be perfect keywords
for our trip. In Batman we have barely checked into the hotel when three
policemen arrive and ask what the photographer, Peter Nicholls, and I
will be doing. They say they need to know for our own protection. I
shake my head. They say I'm not to make a move without them. I laugh and
then leave. The police then interrogate the interpreter about what that
laugh meant.
At this point I had no idea how ludicrous it would become. I knew that
journalists had been followed in the past. "But they were followed
because they did not tell us they were going," said the press counsellor
in the Turkish Embassy in London. We would not give them that excuse. We
applied for accreditation and went all the way to Ankara to pick it up.
"This means that we have given you permission to make an investigation,"
said the woman in the information office. "You should have no problems."
The next morning we (and our "escorts") drive south along the Tigris
and, after 15 minutes, the hills start to soar. They are brown and
lavender and dotted with the pink blossom of almond trees. The South
East is a dry area - only 7 per cent is irrigated - but the land along
the river is the exception and the stone houses are flanked by green
fields and fruit trees. The source of the Tigris is north of Diyarbakir;
it flows for 280 miles in Turkey and then into Iraq. The Ilisu would be
built 40 miles north of the border and would create a long, thin
reservoir for 135 miles to the north. This is the country we are driving
through now, and everything would be submerged except the top of the
lavender hills.
The town of Hasankeyf appears from across the river as something out of
another time. The cliffs and hills around the town are riddled with
5,000 caves, some of which have doors and numbers. A few have become tea
gardens, though only a handful are still homes. Hasankeyf is part town,
part ruin and all archaeological wonder. The only equivalent I can think
of is the cliff villages of the Native Americans in the South West of
the United States. It has been inhabited since Assyrian and Urartu times
and just about everyone who was anyone in the area - the Omayyads,
Abbasids, Hamdanids, Mervanids, Eyyubides and Mongols - has been here.
It was annexed by the Ottoman Empire in 1516. The population is now
5,500 and it is by far the largest single town that would be flooded by
the Ilisu.
We climb up to look at the caves and the old palaces that the Kurds
claim as part of their culture. It is a mad scene - especially when our
three dark-suited Followers are joined by a man who is crazy and trying
to do cartwheels. Halfway down the cliff we stop for tea, served to us
in tiny curvaceous clear glasses by Ramazan Ayhan. The 51-year-old, who
is married with nine children, built this tea garden in these caves 12
years ago. "But I have been living here for 300 years," he says.
He says he knows nothing officially about the dam. "We were not informed
about anything. Nobody has told us anything." But he does know that his
tea garden and home will be submerged (only the ruins near the top will
escape). I ask if he has the deeds for his house and caves. It is
estimated that 40 per cent of people in this area do not, and deeds are
essential for compensation. Ramazan does not like my question: "I was
born here and grew up here. I don't need to buy it because it is my
ancestors'."
We sit in his tea garden, surrounded by ruined splendour and soaring
views. Where will the people of Hasankeyf go? If they choose
compensation - and in previous schemes in this area about 87 per cent of
people did - they will probably end up living in a city and perhaps a
slum. They should receive enough to buy the equivalent of what they have
now but, often, this has not been the case. Most end up taking the
Government to court and 90 per cent win, eventually.
The other option is to be resettled. Again, international guidelines say
exactly what should occur: people should receive housing and land, jobs
and training, help and advice. But Turkey has failed on these counts
many times before. For example, any new houses must be bought by the
people being resettled and paid back with a 25-year, interest-free loan.
Ramazan does not want to think about this. "Because there is no definite
decision about when the dam will be built, we have not decided what to
do. We don't know what to do. When the Government comes and tells us,
then we will try to do something."
It is hard to overestimate the fatalism of the Kurds in this part of
Turkey. When it comes to the dam and its consequences, they do not
believe they have a choice. We might see this as apathy but it seems
merely to reflect the way things work here. The first and only public
meeting to date on the Ilisu was held by Semor in Hasankeyf on December
22 and that was only because the Swiss, UK and other governments
insisted that some kind of consultation begin. People who attended say
it was not held to ask their opinion but to tell them what would be.
We walk up the rocky path to a cave near the top. It stands out from the
others because it has glass-paned windows. A family of six live in this
one room. The woman is 28 and has four living children and one who died
at the age of 18 months. There is a framed picture of this baby on the
wall. The mother wears the Kurdish woman's delicate white lace-edged
headscarf. The cave is spotless; the walls are white and its recesses
are covered by embroidered cloths. There are rugs on the floor, a fridge
in the corner and a television that is tuned to what sounds like a
Turkish version of Celebrity Squares.
The woman (she refuses to give her name) is involved in an intricate
four-needle knitting job and says she knows nothing of the dam. I ask if
she and her husband own the cave. She does not know but explains that,
years ago, her husband was away when the Government came to move the
people in the caves to houses. As a woman, of course, she could not
speak for her family. And so there was no new house, no move, no
anything. Faced with a story like this, asking about deeds and
resettlement options seems pointless. "Nobody has come. We don't know
what to do. We heard that they would come but still they didn't."
The mayor of Hasankeyf says that 100 per cent of the people in the town
are against the dam. This is borne out by interviews with men in other
tea gardens. Here the number of police following us has swelled to 12
and they interrupt the interpreter and ask him to speak in Turkish. The
townsmen say that if the dam must be built, the level of the water
should be lower to spare Hasankeyf. There is a plan to "save" the town
by putting it onto CD-Rom but no one is much impressed by this. The
police scurry round behind me and, as they do, my interviewees become
markedly more careful. One man, old beyond his years and wearing a fuzzy
red plaid shirt, says he is against the dam but adds: "Of course, the
Government knows best."
Our next plan is to go to some of the small villages along the Tigris.
Personally, I do not view this as such an ambitious idea but there are
clues to the contrary. First, all attempts to buy a detailed map of the
area fail. I have cadged a photocopy of a map in Ankara and decide that
it will just have to do. Then our "escorts" arrive for the day dressed
not in suits but in full yomping gear. They are no longer the Men in
Black; we call them the Followers. They view my photocopy with
suspicion. We would later discover that they do not like going off the
main road.
Just beyond Hasankeyf the road heads south, leaving the river. So we
head off on a paved track and, within minutes, are driving through the
tiny village of Ucyol. A man with a Kalashnikov jumps into the road. He
is short and strange-looking and looks like a Smurf with a gun. He is a
village guard and infuriated by the idea that we should be driving
through his town. He becomes even more agitated when we say we want to
interview people and take photographs. He refuses to look at our
accreditation cards and orders us back to the military barracks in
Hasankeyf.
And so back we (and our Followers) go. At the barracks there is a great
kerfuffle. For about 15 minutes, everything is impossible. Then we see
the commander. In his office, over more cups of tea, we all peruse my
photocopy. He asks where we want to go. I name five villages along the
river, all within a few miles of each other. He says we can go to three
of them but forbids us from two, Koyunlu and Palamut, saying they have
been "emptied".
He will not elaborate. The silence says a lot. The Turkish authorities
have emptied dozens of villages in this area as part of their war
against the Kurdish rebels. This is a big complication for any Ilisu
resettlement plan. No one knows how many people lived in the emptied
villages, though the Government now puts the figure at 12,000. All
should still receive compensation of some sort for the Ilisu, though
there seems to be no way of tracing them. In Ankara I had asked about
this and was told that everything would be fine. "They will contact us
when they hear they might get some money," said an official.
On the ground it seems even more haphazard. Palamut is on my list of
populated villages and no one seems to know when it was emptied. As we
drive along we see villages that do not seem to be on the map at all.
This tallies with the comments made in a report on the Ilisu
"stakeholders" compiled for the British Government late last year. "The
number of people affected changes from one estimation to another. Lists
of villages affected should be treated carefully," says the report,
whose author adds: "In the field I observed three villages that are
going to be under water but are not included in the lists."
There is great difficulty in finding out even basic facts about the
Ilisu. A few months ago it was accepted that 36,000 people were involved
(16,000 in villages, 20,000 who have left). That figure has been
continually revised. Semor now says the real figure is about 25,000
(12,739 in villages and towns, 12,000 who have left). The real answer?
No one knows.
But, whatever the number, Salih Taymur knows that he will be included.
Salih is 39 and we find him in a just ploughed field. The river is over
the hill behind his field and, after that, the mountains soar. Salih and
his five brothers own 850 hectares, more than half of which is irrigated
and used for growing vegetables, cereal and cotton. Their extended
family numbers about 100 and, all together, they make up a village that
is not on the map. No officials have been here about the dam. "If it is
up to us, we do not want it. We do not want to move. We earn much more
than they will compensate us for," says Salih. "But the Government is
stubborn. It does do what it decides. It is not up to us."
There is a scent of almonds in the air as we walk towards his huge
greenhouse for him to show us the rows of baby cucumbers and lettuce. We
are invited for a cup of tea. Plastic chairs are produced and we all sit
down, including the Followers. Their presence makes it impossible to
discuss anything to do with the war. The villagers do not want the dam.
They do not know if they will be resettled or just take the money. Two
visitors from the next village say that many of the people they know do
not have land at all (this is true of 35 per cent of people here) and
they themselves do not have deeds for their land. They shrug. Do they
know how much their land is worth? They shrug again.
A few miles along the path, and closer to the river, is the village of
Incirli. It is built on a steep hill and surrounded by green hills and
fields. It is dramatic and very beautiful here. The son of the headman,
Sukru Toy, welcomes us and brings out the white plastic chairs. It is a
strange interview: there are three villagers, four Followers, two
village guards, one Kalashnikov, one walkie-talkie and me. Sukru says 80
people live here now. There used to be more but then it was emptied, and
only half of the people returned. Emptied? "Because of the terror," he
says. Nothing more will be said on that subject, not in this company at
least. The war is in an uncertain phase: the PKK has declared a
ceasefire, the Turks have not accepted it. But the rebels have much
support in these villages and, as we drove up, we saw hundreds of caves
in the hills.
The men of Incirli know nothing of any substance about Ilisu. One older
man volunteers that he was told that they would start building the dam
this month. There has been no official information and no one knows
about resettlement options, compensation or choices. The very idea that
these men are stakeholders beggars belief. After our tea, we get up to
leave and the old man speaks again. "Well, I do not believe it will be
built in month."
Above, the cave dwellings of Hasankeyf
 
Our final goal is to visit the actual village of Ilisu. The map does not
record this because, of course, it now says "Ilisu Dam". The situation
is made more surreal by the fact that no one else seems to believe it
exists either. When they concede that it might, they then say it will be
impossible to visit. The area is in the "emergency zone" and under
military rule. The Followers, who clearly think our pace frenetic, are
glum about the trip. Five hours later it is our turn to be glum. We have
sat in two military commanders' offices and drunk far too much tea. The
second commander is officious. Evidently, we cannot go without a
military escort and he needs 48 hours to arrange that. After many calls
to Ankara, he settles for 24 hours.
We set off the next morning at 8am. The Followers are not pleased. Their
behaviour has been getting stranger and stranger. At one point the day
before they had refused to let us carry on, saying they have run out of
petrol. We pointed to a petrol station just up the road. This was out of
the question. They were not authorised to buy any more petrol. Instead
the plan was to siphon some from our car. It was only when Peter
Nicholls told them exactly what we thought of this that they scurried
off to the petrol station.
Today the Followers have organised an intricate rota system. The result
is that, in total, 41 different men follow us that day. Fourteen are
soldiers, and we set off from their barracks from the frontier town of
Dargecit with one small tank in front and a truck holding eight soldiers
behind. It all seems very elaborate and, really, there is little doubt
that we would be safer without having any soldiers at all. But there is
no point in arguing with a man wearing camouflage.
The terrain here is far more mountainous than before. At times the
landscape becomes almost lunar, with bare grey hills of sand stretching
away from the road. It takes an hour to get to the village, home to some
140 Kurds. Ilisu means "hot spring" and there is a hot sulphur pool
here. Across the river we see a spa. Today young boys jump in the water
and play. Tomorrow the Ilisu looms.
This village will be buried under the dam itself, which will stand 135
metres high and, with six turbines and generators, be the largest
hydroelectric project on the Tigris. The Ilisu is one of 13 dams being
built under an ambitious scheme called GAP. Its aim is to increase
irrigated land by 50 per cent and to double the country's electricity
production. Critics note that Turkey's energy programme is inefficient
at the best of times but the country itself sees the Ilisu as a
patriotic enterprise.
The village headman is welcoming, although there is none of the
friendliness of other villages. Of course, our 14-soldier escort cannot
have helped, but the head man has a walkie-talkie and the whole village
seems to be "on message". "We want the dam. We are unemployed. It will
help fishing and there will be jobs," says the headman. The soldiers say
we can talk only in Turkish. We do this, discussing compensation. The
soldiers chime in, stressing that everyone will be VERY well
compensated. "The dam is for our benefit," says one villager. "It is for
all of our benefit," corrects one of the soldiers.
I ask if I can speak to the women. "The ladies will say what we have
already said," says one man. "Bring only the women who speak Turkish,"
adds a soldier. A villager answers: "There are no women who speak
Turkish."
No interview is arranged. The women are there, though, in the
background. One is in a doorway talking on a mobile phone, another is
washing dishes at a stone water fountain. They bake the big, round,
doughnut-shaped tandir bread for our lunch. Everything spread out on the
floorcloth is made in the village: yoghurt, goat's cheese, butter,
boiled eggs, tomato and pepper salad and fresh caraway greens. It is
delicious but the atmosphere is stilted. There is no way to avoid the
conclusion that this is a village under occupation. What do they really
think of the Ilisu? We will never know.
 
Before going to Turkey, I was told by Kerim Yildiz, of the Kurdish Human
Rights Project in London, that it would require a revolution for the
Ilisu resettlement project to be implemented properly. For starters,
says Yildiz, there must be freedom of expression and basic human rights
for the Kurds. Surely, I said, that is possible. Why cannot the
Government find out how many people live there and start the process of
giving them choices about their future? There could be an information
blitz of meetings, individual consultations, leaflets, charts, classes.
On the ground, this seems extremely unlikely. Semor is relatively
inexperienced and its survey cannot address many of the huge practical
problems to do with resettlement here. It is also unclear how much
control the international expert will have. But all of the difficulties
are exacerbated by a basic lack of human rights and a real lack of
understanding of what those rights might even be. There seems to be no
comprehension of what we are trying to do, for instance. The Followers
have been intrusive and intimidating. The interpreter says they are just
doing their jobs. I'm not sure what that job is exactly - spy, irritant,
intimidator, protector - but it is no way to behave in a country that
wants to become a member of the European Union.
And what about Esra? She, you may remember, is the little girl from
Hasankeyf who made me think that this story was about people, not
politics. I now know that we will never know what Esra thinks because,
in this part of Turkey, even a nine-year-old girl knows that the truth
is a dangerous thing.