In the shadow of the dam
by James Badcock
[ politics | opinion - august 02 ]
When the ill-starred Stephen Byers, then at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), spoke of being "minded" to give export credit support to the Ilisu dam in Turkey, he inadvertently kick-started a high-profile campaign which would embarrass the Government and call into question its 'ethical' foreign policy.
The dam was to be the latest addition to Turkey's Greater Anatolia Project (GAP), a string of some 19 hydroelectric power plants and 22 dams in the mainly Kurdish south-east. In 1997 Turkey had invited an international consortium to build Ilisu, including the British construction firm Balfour Beatty. With Turkey unable to fund such a project, the companies sought export credit guarantees from their respective governments.
Raising concerned eyebrows was the location of the proposed dam, in the heart of the Kurdish region, where at least 30,000 people have died in a war which has raged in south-east Turkey for almost two decades. An estimated four million Kurds have been displaced by the conflict, and human rights groups estimated that 78,000 Kurds would be affected by Ilisu, losing lands and homes. Another striking element of destruction was the flooding of Hasankeyf, a town straddling the Tigris and witness to 10,000 years of civilisation in the valley.
After two years of media pressure and protest led by TV comedian Mark Thomas, the Ilisu Dam Campaign claimed victory in November 2001 when Balfour Beatty suddenly pulled out of the project before the DTI had reached its final decision. This rescued the Government from what was seen as prevarication and ministers from further need to construe policy from Byers' opaque declaration.
Balfour Beatty's withdrawal prompted a flood as other members of the international consortium followed suit. The lack of a plan for the resettlement of the evicted people, the certain destruction of Hasankeyf and environmental concerns combined to put the spotlight on Turkey's human rights record in relation to its Kurdish minority. Many wondered why, if private companies were unwilling to be seen to be involved, a Labour Government would seem so interested.
Labour MP Ann Clwyd said that "the World Bank would not touch a project of this kind with a bargepole", while Plaid Cymru's Elfyn Llwyd described the mere consideration of the dam as "obscene". He added that many in Labour's ranks had been "terribly uncomfortable" about Ilisu, including International Development Secretary Clare Short.
The collapse of Ilisu was also a blow to Turkey's government, attempting to raise its international standing since becoming an official candidate for accession to the European Union in December 1999. That year had also seen the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Turkey's enemy in the war in the south-east. The PKK's subsequent declaration of a ceasefire gave Turkey the opportunity to address the grave human rights situation in the region.
The fifteen years of PKK guerrilla warfare and harsh counter-insurgency from the military left a trail of misery in their path. Turkey's army claimed to have killed 23,000 terrorists; mostly innocent Kurds, according to the outlawed Kurdish political groups. Thousands were imprisoned for the crime of 'separatism', torture widely reported and the death penalty frequently used.
Attempts to provide a political alternative to violent confrontation have fallen foul of repressive action against parties advocating the case of the Kurds. In 1994 four members of the Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) were sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for alleged membership of an armed organisation. The European Court of Human Rights found their trial to be unlawful last year, one of over 200 judgements handed down against Turkey by this court since 1996.
The successor to the DEP, the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP), is currently threatened with closure. Amnesty International's 2001 report said that "repression of political parties and organisations in south-east Turkey continued unabated. Numerous associations and media companies were closed and demonstrations and meetings were banned."
HADEP managed to win the 1999 local elections in the south-east, despite the campaign being fought in an intimidatory atmosphere, according to the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP). In January 2001, the two founders of a HADEP branch in Silopi were summoned to report to the military police. The authorities say that they walked free after just 30 minutes, but they have never been seen since.
In March of last year, Turkey produced a National Programme of Action (NPA), a series of measures designed to pave the way towards accession to the EU. It included restrictions on the power of detention without charge and a review of the role of the controversial National Security Council, a body dominated by the military which has now been demoted to a merely advisory role to the elected government. Kerim Yildiz, of the London-based KHRP, says that the changes are little more than "cosmetic", having little effect on the ground.
Amnesty International say that the reduction in the time suspects are held makes little difference as "in a majority of the cases reported, torture occurred within the first 24 hours". The fear of torture is the prime factor cited for the ongoing hunger strike protests at the new F-type prisons, in which convicts would be in small rather than in large communal cells. So far over 50 prisoners have died as a result of their fasts.
A key obstacle to positive change is the continued state of emergency in the Kurdish region. The army wield enormous power in Turkey, as demonstrated by the three military coups in the last five decades. Kerim Yildiz claims that to understand Turkish politics, it is necessary to appreciate that there are "two systems" in operation. One is the nationally elected government, while the other is the National Security Council.
"Their decisions are more important than the government's. Parliament will give priority to the so-called recommendations of the National Security Council. Change is not related to the policy of the government, but to the policy of the state. It is still taboo to touch state policy."
Historically, Turkey has tried to assimilate the Kurdish south-east by changing place names and banning all forms of Kurdish expression. In economic terms, the region has been neglected and remains the poorest in the country with higher rates of infant mortality than elsewhere in the country. There is little local infrastructure, only elements of national schemes such as oil and gas pipelines and a major highway, all of which run through the area but bring few tangible benefits to the local economy.
Historian Mordechai Nisan has described the zone as a "classic internal colony", exploited for its resources without being invited into the mainstream of the national community. Kerim Yildiz thinks this is quite deliberate: "It's an intentional policy to not develop the area to show that it is backwards. When you develop, people think more about rights".
Water is the region's most plentiful natural resource. Both the Tigris and Euphrates begin their meander down to the Persian Gulf in the mountains of the south-east. The gigantic Ataturk Dam, the sixth largest in the world, is the flagship project of GAP, designed to solve Turkey's energy problems. Despite the grandeur of the scheme, Yildiz points out that many villages in the surrounding area do not have electricity.
Ilisu is meant to be another part of GAP, a plan which is controversial purely for the impact on water supplies in the largely dry region. Dr Kamil Mahdi, lecturer in Economics of the Middle East at Exeter University, says that by continuing with GAP, a "festering problem" is resulting as "Turkey has gradually been getting its way without the downstream countries having a say."
One of the four conditions for UK support for Ilisu was consultation with neighbouring states, which the government was satisfied had taken place. Having visited Iraq and Syria to investigate, Kerim Yildiz claims that such a consultation never took place and that by giving an export credit guarantee, Britain would have broken international law.
As for the other conditions, a resettlement plan for those made homeless was never prepared by the Turkish authorities and local people were not consulted. A report made for the government department responsible for the decision on Ilisu, the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), found that safeguards against environmental damage were less than international best practice as found in World Bank and OECD guidelines. The Environmental Resources Management report identified significant risks to the archaeological site of Hasankeyf, as well as poor water quality and negative downstream impact.
The House of Commons Select Committee for International Development was scathing in its criticism of the Government for failing to demand decisive implementation of the conditions required of Turkey before considering the proposal. It described the Government's "shotgun wedding approach" as "the worst form of export credit practice."
The role of the hitherto anonymous ECGD, part of the DTI, has been brought out into the open by Ilisu. The nature of dealings between governments and big business is now a public issue, shown by the interest in the sale of air traffic technology to Tanzania earlier this year. Some among the Ilisu campaigners have a cynical view of the department, seeing it as an inside track for large corporations to obtain public funding without a risk to themselves. Nicholas Hildyard, of the Cornerhouse policy review organisation, has described export credit guarantees as representing "the nearest thing that companies are likely to get to a free lunch".
The ECGD say they are responsible in their selection of projects, pointing to a £200m positive return to the treasury for the year 2000/2001 on £5.6 billion of business supported. They also claim to be moving towards greater transparency, publishing a list of the guarantees awarded last year for the first time.
Jean Lambert, a Green Party MEP, still has a complaint, however, about the limited flow of information from the department about projects under consideration. Speaking in Parliament last year, she pointed out that when information is supplied to the ECGD by a company, it retains ownership of those documents and can prohibit its publication or public scrutiny.
Ultimately, it was the issue of human rights in such a conflict-ridden region that proved most controversial. In a torrid session before the Select Committee for International Development, the then Minister for ECGD, Richard Caborn, admitted that the issue of human rights had not been raised during discussions with the Foreign Office when considering the application. This was later denied by other ministerial sources, but the Committee expressed concern in its 2000 report that the ECGD only considers human rights from an economic perspective:
"We infer that if a project infringed or ignored human rights in some way but appeared economically robust and sustainable, ECGD would be prepared to grant cover."
In reply, the ECGD says before they consider a project, other departments consider the human rights issue when issuing an export license. The fact that 25 to 30% of ECGD cover goes to arms sales underlines that the ECGD's performance is a key test of New Labour's 'ethical' foreign policy.
The withdrawal of Balfour Beatty meant that that policy was not tested in this case. However, the hard dealing over Turkey's application to join the European Union is far from played out. Turkey's Kurdish population must hope that their victory over Ilisu marks the start of international recognition of their cause.
