Development & Aid, Environment, Europe, Headlines

DEVELOPMENT-TURKEY: Dam Floods Historic Monuments

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Jun 28 2000 (IPS) - Environmentalists and members of the public have reacted with anger and regret over this weeks flooding of the unique black rose gardens, pistachio fields and invaluable Roman mosaics in the south-east Halfeti countryside of the Sanliurfa province.

The flooding was caused by the waters of the new Birecik Dam reservoir.

The excavations in the lower “A” level of the Zeugma ruins was brought to a halt Monday after the waters of the dam reservoir reached the floors of the ancient villas decorated with beautiful mosaics.

Criticised by opponents as “a crime against humanity”, the Birecik Dam, as part of a massive irrigation project (GAP) on the River Euphrates, has been under construction since 1996. Its reservoir had begun holding water since Dec. 1999.

The controversy surrounding the dam’s hazardous effects on social, historical and biological environment came to the fore this week after the reservoir flooded the riches of the Halfeti district. It is expected to continue swelling to a maximum height of 385 meters above sea level by Oct. 2000.

The flooding of the 2000 year old historic Roman settlement Zeugma, with its invaluable mosaics, has extended the controversy to an international scale.

Referred to by experts as one of the world’s richest collections of Roman mosaics, the Zeugma site includes the ruins of a fully functioning trading city with a 70 000 strong population and ornaments alongside examples of civilian and religious architecture.

“Turkey is blindfolded, sees nothing of its past and future,” says archaeologist Nezih Basgelen, editor of the archaeological review “Sanat ve Arkeoloji”.

“I have been fighting to attract public attention regarding the fate of Zeugma since 1987, but no one has taken heed. Only after the American daily New York Time’s coverage of the issue this year did the Turkish public opinion react, but it was too late,” he told IPS.

However, the Birecik Dam project has also been sharply criticised for the exclusion of locals from the planning process. Some 30 000 people, from a total of 44 villages, in the adjacent Southeast provinces of Sanliurfa, Gaziantep and Adiyaman have been adversely affected by the project. A total of 6.500 of the locals have been forced to resettle.

“The principle human hazard of these dams is that they fully eradicate a culture, a way of life,” says Arif Sentek, Secretary General of the Turkish Architects Chamber.

“Even if, the archaeological riches were to have been studied, there exists no research on the flora and fauna, the social culture, the traditions or dialects and local architecture – a part of the traditional stone architecture extending from Iran to Egypt – that will be flooded under the reservoir,” he told IPS.

“We are all guilty of what now happens to the area as we reacted so sluggishly (when it came to saving it),” he added.

Mustafa Korkmaz, an inhabitant of the Erenköy village, most of which has been flooded by the dam, still stays in his house. “Only 30 out of our village’s 200 households were rescued, the school and the mosque have long been flooded,” he says.

“The pistachio fields and orchards have been destroyed,” he regrets. “Pistachio is like human beings. In order to bear fruit you have to spend twenty years for a pistachio tree. Pistachios are sown not for our sons or us but for the wealth of our grandsons. Now our grandsons are stripped of the fruits of our past labour,” he regrets.

Environmentalists also lament the fact that Halfeti’s unique gardens of black roses will also sink under the dam’s reservoir.

Ipek Cal}slar, a journalist from Istanbul, who has just returned from a visit to the area says the locals are the most affected by the extinction of pistachio cultivation, their major source of wealth, as the dams reservoir rises to flood the villages.

“It is visible that the Turkish government has achieved a relative success in providing resettlement and training for those who have been depopulated from the area,” says Calislar. “But (whether or not) the locals themselves will adapt to the new life imposed on them by the dam is an open question,” she told IPS.

“Zeugma is fantastic, and you regret that it is going to be flooded. One cannot avoid asking how necessary the dam is,” she said. “The whole irrigation project has had such a devastating repercussion on the local culture and settlement that you further ask if it’s hidden target is to dehumanise the Southeast countryside.”

The Turkish government says the Birecik Dam and the overall irrigation scheme GAP (Southeast Anatolia Project) is part of the country’s development plans. The Birecik Dam and Hydroelectric Power Plant (HES) will be the third dam on the Euphrates following the Karakaya and Ataturk Dams. The Birecik Dam and HES will produce 2.518 billion kWh of electric power every year and irrigate 92.700 hectares of arable land.

Turkey’s present gross electric power consumption is 127.8 billion kWh, while the demand is estimated to grow around 161 billion kWh in 2004.

One of the largest development projects in the world, the GAP comprises of a series of dams, hydroelectric power plants and irrigation canals. It extends over the plains alongside the rivers Euphrates and Tigris extending in provinces of Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Mardin, Siirt, Batman and Sirnak.

Apart from its impact on the region’s presently arid climate, the GAP envisages developing an active farming area with extensive irrigation systems and electric power generation. The project is expected to be concluded by the year 2020.

The Birecik Dam has also been criticised by Turkey’s southern neighbours, Syria and Iraq, who believe that it will harm and reduce their major water source.

However, the Turkish government says the Birecik Dam will help regulate the Euphrates waters, released by the already existing Atatürk and Karakaya dams, particularly during peak times of downstream water flow and thus benefit Turkey’s neighbours as well.

Lawyer, Murat Cano, who is campaigning for an end to the dam project and the rescuing of the riches of the area, has accused the government of committing “a crime against humanity.”

“Birecik Dam, along with the proposed dam of Ilisu-Cizre, exterminates the civilisations of the upper-Euphrates region,” Cano told IPS. “This is an environmental and cultural genocide and should be tried in the International Criminal Court and the European Human Rights Court.”

“In this court, not only Turkey, but also the EU member countries should be tried,” he adds. “For, the international consortiums who have assumed the construction of these dams include firms from all around Europe, and they are also a part of this genocide,” he claims.

“The European countries too should have been blamed. For they are signatories to international treaties that provide protection of the environment and cultural heritage as their basis. And they have bluntly violated those treaties,” Cano said.

Cano and other environmental activists have appealed to international NGOs such as the International Committee for Monuments and Other Sites, ICOMOS, the European Parliament, Council of Europe, and European Commission to act to suspend the loans for the ongoing dam construction.

Campaigners have also appealed to Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, to rescue the antique sites remaining in the area.

 
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